


Fallen For A Lie

by MagusLibera



Series: fics I wrote in quarantine as I chilled [18]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: A.R.G.U.S. (DCU), Alternate Universe - Spies & Secret Agents, Coffee Shops, Exes, F/M, I will eventually continue this, Inspired by Billie Eilish, Lovers to Enemies to Allies to Lovers, Miscommunication, Quarantine and Chill Fic Drive (Arrow TV 2012), Secrets, Strained Relationships, Undercover, Undercover Missions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-13
Updated: 2020-09-13
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:53:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26449588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MagusLibera/pseuds/MagusLibera
Summary: Felicity. April 2014. Locked in a van with an enemy. Captive. Looking for any way out of this situation that she can find before it gets even worse.Oliver. October 2010. Reading through his latest mission brief in a coffee shop in Starling City. Exhausted. Looking at the one woman who has made him genuinely smile in the last few years.In the present, Felicity has been running from her past, resenting her ex for ruining her life. In the past, Oliver meets the woman of his dreams when she spills a latte on his laptop.
Relationships: Oliver Queen/Felicity Smoak
Series: fics I wrote in quarantine as I chilled [18]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1672840
Comments: 34
Kudos: 59





	Fallen For A Lie

**Author's Note:**

> So... I know I shouldn't be adding yet another future multi-chapter to my list of things to write but if it helps I have written over half of what will (hopefully) be the longest of my continued Q&C fics and I'm hoping to finish it before the end of October. Also I wrote half of this way back in June so I wanted to finish the chapter. I know Q&C was a while ago but since my country's heading straight back into lockdown right now and I planned this out for Q&C way back I figured I might as well include it.
> 
> This idea was originally inspired when I heard Billie Eilish's No Time To Die for the first time and was then turned into a full fic plan for Q&C.
> 
> Big big thanks to Cerys for telling me that this wasn't total rubbish and convincing me to finish it <3
> 
> Hope you like this!

**24 th April 2014 – A VAN, UNKNOWN LOCATION**

More than thirty minutes have passed since the van doors slammed shut in her face and Felicity’s heart is still pounding so loudly that she can hear each thud of her valves colliding. To her panicked mind, the constant thrumming sounds like a warning siren in her head, telling her with each _thump, thump_ , that she is _not-safe_. _Thump, thump_ , _not-safe_. _Thump, thump_ , _not-safe_. She needs no such warning, she is well aware of exactly how dangerous a situation she has found herself in. The problem is that, even with all of the intellect that she possesses, there is _no_ way out. She is locked in a moving vehicle, headed straight into the most terrifying situation she can imagine – one that she has no idea what to expect from. And to make matters worse, she is locked up with _Him_.

The only light is that which seeps through the minute gaps in the sealed doors, making the space so dim that he is a mere shadow in the far corner of the opposite bench, right next to the wall that divides their compartment and the driver’s. If he were anybody else, she could ignore his existence, or pretend he is unfortunate stranger going through a similar experience to herself.

But he is not anybody else. He is _Him_.

The man she has not been this close to in years. The man who dragged her into this mess to begin with. The man who ruined her entire life.

The man who used to wake her up with freshly brewed coffee and who would spend hours painstakingly making her delicious dinners and who she trusted with everything in her, even after she had thought she lost the ability to trust anybody so wholly ever again.

The man she once _lo_ -

_No_. No, it was not lo- it was not _that_. It never could have been. Not when the feelings were clearly so one sided, not when he was doing… what he was doing.

Not when he was keeping such a huge, life altering secret from her.

For years, she has been supressing so much as the mere thought of _Him_ , and all of the feelings that come with those memories he has attached himself to. There have been far more important things on her mind. Her constant vigilance, the moving around to remain anonymous, the ever present fear of being found. It has successfully occupied her thoughts enough that she has been able to ignore everything pertaining to _Him_. But now, in the silent darkness of the van – with nobody else but him to keep her company and little else to think about other than everything that has happened and everything that is about to happen – the intrusive thoughts are impossible to ignore.

He is so quiet. He always has been, even the gentle movement of his breathing does not make a sound. But even though there is very little physical evidence of his presence, Felicity is as hyper-aware of it as she has always been. It is like she can sense him, like she can feel every minute shift of his chest as he inhales, every gust of air that he expels as he exhales. She does not look over at him, but she instinctively knows that he has opened and closed his mouth several times, trying to talk to her but not knowing what to say. She knows that he is sitting with his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands as emotion bleeds from him like a palpable thing.

What _could_ he even say? Nothing could possibly excuse what he did to her. Nothing could make her forgive him. Especially not right now, when his own actions have once again led to all of the trouble in her life. To her capture. If he had been somebody, anybody else, she would never have been in danger. If he had not used her, she could have avoided everything that has happened in ever so long right from the start.

If he could have just _left her alone_ , if he had been just a _little_ less persistent, she could have stayed away. She never would have been caught if he could just _let her go_. He has always been far too stubborn though, far too prideful to let her have the final word and leave her be. No, he had to come after her, had to try and take an opportunity to charm his way into absolution for his treatment of her.

He cannot be absolved, not by her. She will _never_ forgive him and she will certainly never trust him again. She gave him the last of the trust that she had, all that remained after her father and Cooper and all of the trials of her life. She gave him everything that she had to offer and he dismantled it all. He dismantled them. Right from their beginning, he began to destroy them. No matter how sorrowful his bright, blue eyes look whenever they catch hers, no matter how much he tries to explain, he betrayed her and Felicity Smoak is not one to give second chances.

She does her best to tune him out. To drown the pervasive presence that he has by tuning into the crunching of tyres over road, the whirring of the engine, the pounding of her own heart and the swirling thoughts in her mind as she tries to figure out how to get free the very second that those doors open. Because she knows that she will not get another chance after that. Her captors may not have been smart enough to find her in the three years since the night that her entire life changed they know what they are doing – they know how to keep a prisoner under lock, of that she is sure. And without a computer before her, any chance she has of escaping are almost non-existent.

But there is no ignoring him, he is too big. Not his physical presence – though that too – but the space that he has long since taken up in her mind. He carved out a presence there just for himself and though she has done her utmost to exorcise him from her mind, to free herself of the unresolved feelings and the now haunting memories from their time together, there is no escaping it. No escaping him. No ignoring him now that she is sat within a metre of his body.

So by the sixteenth time that he starts to talk to her – this time getting so far as to make an audible ‘F’ sound – she loses both her focus and her patience.

“Oliver.” She snaps, “If you’re going to say something, then say it. Don’t just leave me sitting here having to put up with your incessant indecisiveness.” Her heavy breathing gives away how much effort it takes for her to talk to him, to acknowledge his existence, “Oh right,” she continues when he makes no further sound, “I almost forgot. Refusing to talk to me is your specialty.”

He has the nerve to look wounded enough that she can see his pain, even in the pitch black of the van, as if she is the one who stabbed a knife in his back and not the other way around. Even so, he still says nothing.

Felicity huffs, “I should have known. You haven’t changed a bit, have you? Still can’t be honest with me. Still trying to keep me in the dark.”

“Felicity.” It is almost a whimper, the way that he says it. Like he is begging her for something but she cannot work out what. He has all of the power here, he is the architect of her misery and yet a pang of guilt still pierces her heart for speaking to him like that. Immediately, she is furious with herself. _She_ has no reason to feel guilty. It should be him struggling with that particular emotion. He is the one at fault.

“Are you happy with yourself, Oliver?” she asks, directing her anger at him, “You got what you wanted. This is what you wanted, isn’t it? Me. Right here with you. At your mercy.”

“Felicity,” he repeats, but this time, Felicity is prepared for his voice. And that smooth, sexy tone will not break her ever again, no matter how pleasurable the memories of it in her ear are, “You have to know that _this_ is never what I wanted.” He pleads, as if he has not been trying to get a captive audience with her for the last three years.

“Please.” She huffs, “I know you have no respect for me as a person, but you have to at least respect my intelligence enough to not tell lies like that.”

“Of course I respect you.” He insists, “I respect you more than anybody else-”

“Stop, Oliver! Just stop. Do you really think I’ll ever believe another word from your mouth? Do you really think I’m stupid enough to do that?” she yells.

Oliver’s response it cut off by a banging on the other side of the wall he is sat against, and a muffled order for them to “Shut up.” From one of Felicity’s guards. Captors.

Felicity glowers at Oliver, she still has a lot to say but she does not trust herself to speak below a yell so holds back, not fancying getting a nasty shock from a Taser or worse. Like meeting the business end of on of their guns. He, on the other hand, has not spoken above a murmur for their entire conversation, and takes her silence as an opportunity, “I never lied to you, Felicity.” She scoffs, “I admit, I withheld the truth, and I know that wasn’t okay. I know I shouldn’t’ve started anything with you with that hanging over our heads, dooming us right from the start. I know I should have told you. I- I know I was wrong. But you need to know that everything I did tell you was the absolute truth. Right from the start, I never lied outright to you and I lo-”

“ _Don’t._ ” she hisses, unable to hold back as the thought of him saying those words again, here, after everything, it terrifies her more than the thought of a bullet. “Don’t you dare. You have _no_ right to say that to me. You didn’t then, you don’t now and you _never_ will again.”

“I’m sorry.” Is his only response, “I’m sorry for everything, but I promise you, it wasn’t what it looked like.”

Felicity looks at her surroundings – or what little of them she can see – and as much as she can through the chains binding her wrists to the bench she is sitting on, she gestures around her, “I don’t believe you.” She reiterates.

  
Oliver just looks at her, having the gall to appear heartbroken.

It makes Felicity’s blood boil. He was the one who broke her heart. Not the other way around. He never had enough of his heart in it – in them – for it to get broken, he just came and made her fall for him and all the while he was ruining any chance they ever had of being happy. Normal. He must have expected it, he must have known what would happen when she found out, he must have been prepared and he must have protected his heart. Because there was no way for him to keep it from her forever. He went into everything knowing that there was an expiration date, that they would end before long. No way did he let his heart get involved.

Flaring her nostrils, she glares at him, “What were you expecting, Oliver? For me to fall down at your feet at the first sight of you? You did this.” As best as she can through her shackles, she gestures at the room around them, “You’re the reason that all of this is happening, you’re the reason that everything happened and I will never, _ever_ forgive you for that. You must know that by now.”

“I know,” he whispers, voice haunted, “I know. But that doesn’t change how I feel, Felicity. It doesn’t stop me from hoping.”

She has no chance to retort scathingly because she can hear something happening beyond the strong metal boxing her in. Both she and Oliver perk up, focusing in on the sounds. She can hear some sort of bustling happening on the other side, like they are entering an area with a lot of people and a lot of things happening. Like a warehouse or a base. And from the other side, where the thin sheet of metal divides she and Oliver from the guards behind the wheel, she can hear them talking to one another. They are not broadcasting their voices like they had to yell at her, but she can make out enough to understand that they are arriving at their destination – wherever that may be – and that they are waiting for some sort of ‘Director’ to arrive.

At the word, Oliver stiffens up, his breathing shallowing as his left hand clenches tightly and his right index finger begins to rub against his right thumb nervously. Even after three years, Felicity recognises that unmistakable tick that he has. The almost imperceptible movement that gives away his feelings whenever he is nervous. She had thought that it might have been faked too, but here he is. Still doing it. She ignores the way that her heart flutters at the movement that she always found so endearing.

He leans back against the van’s wall, eyes fixing upon her with not the pain or desperation that he has displayed over the last couple of minutes, but the determination that she recognises so well. He is focusing, preparing for what lies ahead (and whatever it is, he seems to have a far better idea about it than Felicity does). There is the man that she has grown to realise he is. Cold, hard, deadly.

The opposite to the man she thought she once knew. This is who he really is, and it reminds Felicity of all of the reasons that she has to hate him, all of the reasons why she has spent the last few years putting as much distance between her and him as possible. Now though, there is no choice but to be near him, to watch him.

This is the man she will always see when she looks at him, no matter what mask he puts on. And she has to remember that. She has to hold on to that fact even as she watches him closely for as long as she is forced to be in his company.

To survive.

*************************

**24 th October 2010 – COFFEE SHOP, STARLING CITY**

Oliver looks up from the laptop on the table before him as the bell attached to the door of the coffee shop chimes softly. He notes a small woman entering, young and with her hair tied back professionally in ponytail at the base of her neck. Still focused on the file he had been reading, he dismisses her as nothing noteworthy, nothing dangerous, and returns his gaze to the screen.

The contents of the file are nothing that he has not seen before. It is a simple job, infiltration, reconnaissance, action. This particular time, the target is a female which is mildly unusual but not enough for it to interest him. None of the photos of her are particularly clear, but he can see enough to know that she is fairly short and has dark hair and pale skin. The lack of clarity or discerning features in the images of the woman does not concern him. Normally, he puts more worth on the details written about a target than their photographs. People change appearances so quickly these days that images are only helpful to a certain extent.

From what he can tell, Waller has an interest in this woman because she has ties to some other, known criminal and Waller wants to know how involved she was in the crime. To Oliver, it seems to be a job like any other. The only aspect of it that has him uneasy is where the job is based. Starling City. His home, the place where his family lives. The place where he refused to return to half a year ago because he knows that his family deserve better than him. They deserve better than to have his darkness taint their lives.

Before he dives into the details of his new target, Oliver reaches over to his latte, intending to drain the last of the drink so that he can get a fresh one before he becomes too involved in planning on how best to carry out his mission. Just as he is about to place the lip of the cup at his mouth, his elbow is jostled by something unexpectedly bumping into it. His hand jerks, the cup slipping away from his mouth and, to his horror, towards his laptop. He is powerless but to watch as the last third of his drink goes sloshing over the keyboard, shorting out the device.

“Oh my god!” a feminine voice shrieks at his side, “I am so sorry! I’m just so clumsy – did you get any on you? Oh no! Oh no, how could I?” without asking, she slides into the chair opposite him, making him tense up in preparation for the entire thing to have been some ruse designed to distract him before an attack but, instead, he just sees two hands grabbing at his laptop and pulling it away. He almost lunges forwards, worried that the person is trying to steal confidential information from it, but then he remembers that she just sent liquid splashing all over it and the thing is now just a useless hunk of plastic and metal. He doubts that she could even get it to Google anything now, let alone show her the limited case files saved to it.

Thinking that she is about to apologise for him for ruining his (expensive) laptop, he awaits what she will say next. However, he finds himself unable to see her thanks to her ducking down over the device, the monitor blocking his view. “Oh, my baby, how could I do this to you?” he starts, shocked that a complete stranger would call him her baby, “Oh, look you’ve got latte all over you and your precious keys are all sticky.” She bemoans, “Well, I know it’s on me for knocking him but your daddy definitely shouldn’t have been drinking right over you like that in a public place, how could he? You’ve really been mistreated today, but it’s okay, Felicity can make everything better now.”

With no small degree of surprise, Oliver realises that the woman is not talking to him but to his laptop. She is apologising to his laptop. For the first time in longer than he can remember, Oliver feels his lips splitting into an amused grin. That grin drops away as soon as he hears a clatter and looks over to see his laptop being disassembled right in front of him.

“Hey, hey!” he protests, “What’re you doing?”

And then – then, she looks up at him. _Mesmerised_. He is utterly mesmerised. Enthralled by the beauty before him. It is the woman who entered the café only moments before, her blonde curls pulled back to reveal the most beautiful face he has ever looked upon. Her bright blue eyes glitter up at him, revealing her intelligence and her worry (presumably for his laptop) and her impatience all at once.

Entranced by those blues, for the second time in over three years, Oliver looks at somebody he does not see as a threat or a target. Somebody who makes him smile. And in that moment, he remembers exactly when the last time he smiled was. It was about eight months before in this very city. Looking upon that very woman. _It is her_. It is the woman from his mother’s office.

_Felicity_. She called herself Felicity. _Fe-li-ci-ty_.

Unaware of how Oliver’s world is shifting right before her eyes, Felicity blinks at him, “I’m fixing your laptop for you.” She states, like he should already have known, “But I need to work fast so that the latte doesn’t get into the important components.” She shifts impatiently, making Olive catch onto her meaning.

“Right,” he croaks, still stunned by this twist of fate, “Okay, thanks.” She gets back to work without another word, doing something that she must have done a thousand times before like the moment is anything but profound. Like it is just a normal day and she is doing a normal thing. Not like her life is changing.

To Oliver, this is a life changing moment, the moment that fate has once again brought him before the only person in years who has made him feel exclusively positive things. It is a moment in which he is having his fantasies confirmed. Seeing her right there before him is irrefutable proof that he had not hallucinated her all those months ago, that she is real and just as bright and wonderful as he remembers her. If not more so. Seeing her here is proof that the way she made him feel back then, even without exchanging a single word with him, even without either of them knowing the other, it is real. It was not some freak feeling brought on by chemicals and circumstance. It is simply just the way that she makes him feel.

Oliver remains quiet as he watches her work, still just drinking in the sight of the woman who gave him hope at a time when he had none. The woman who kept him going through one of the darkest times in his life without even knowing what she was doing, just by being herself. She is as bright now as she was then, a shock of colour in Oliver’s dull life that he never expected to encounter again but now that he has a taste, now that he has found her again, he can already feel his chest tightening at the prospect of having to let her go after she is done. Because he will have to let her go, he has to let everything go. Once he completes his mission here, he will be sent out to his next and he has no idea where it might be. He could end up back in Hong Kong, in Russia, in Japan, Coast City, anywhere.

There is no way that he can risk getting involved with this woman any more than he already has, but he can feel himself wanting to. His entire life is about self-control, his survival relies on his ability to keep his actions and reactions contained, to keep himself separate of the world and the people who he inevitably will end up hurting or being hurt by. Something about her, about the way that he feels she is neither somebody who will hurt him or somebody who he could hurt, something about the light within her, it draws him in. It slips through the cracks of his armour and makes him want to be involved. It makes him feel like he is going to be unable to walk away when the time comes that he has to.

“Okay, I think I got it!” she exclaims, grinning at him as she finishes replacing something in his laptop, “It should be okay now.” Oliver watches as her finger descends on the power button, turning his laptop on. For a beat, he does not register why that would be significant and then he realises.

“Wait.” He lunges forwards, snatching the device back in a way that he realises is probably rather rude, but he needs to stop her from seeing anything, she cannot know what he is doing in the city, what he does with his life. She definitely cannot know any of the confidential information he knows that device contains. “I’ll just… check that nothing is lost.” He rushes to explain. She looks a little taken aback, but accepts his cover.

The second that the brief pops up he shuts it down, not even giving himself a chance to look at it before it is gone and hidden away from prying eyes. Pretending to root around the computer for a couple of minutes even though he knows full well that it is almost empty barring that file because it gets wiped after every mission, he looks up at her nervously, clearing his throat as he shuts the deactivated laptop before him.

“Thank you.” He grunts at her.

Beaming, she replies, “It was the least I could do, especially since I’m the one who bumped into you in the first place.” She blushes.

“Still.” He cannot take his eyes off her.

“I’m Felicity.” She offers out a hand, “Felicity Smoak, I work with computers which is why I could… you know…”

“I’m Oliver.” He gives her his real name before he can even think twice about it, about the fact that she has definitely seen his face before and she must know that the name of her boss’ castaway son is Oliver.

“You know,” she frowns, properly looking at him for the first time, “You kind of remind me of this other Oliver. You know, Oliver Queen, the guy whose family’s ship went down in the North… China…” Oliver’s tenses up as her jaw drops, “Sea.”

He stands without hesitation, scooping up his laptop in one arm as he grabs her by the elbow with his free hand. The only good thing about the whole situation is that she is too stunned to say anything, just staring at him in complete shock as he drags her from their booth and towards the exit he knows is to the back. The two of them crash through the back door, walking out into an empty alley.

“Y-you’re Oliver Queen.” She gasps, “You look different but it’s you. You’re alive.”

Working his jaw, Oliver debates his next words but he finds himself unable to lie to her, “Yes.”

“Oh my God.” Her eyes rove over his face, landing on his more defined, thinned cheeks, his short beard, his long hair, his broader build, “You’re really alive. How? What’re you doing here? Why don’t your family know? _What is happening_?” she questions.

Oliver hears somebody on the other side of the door and, dropping the laptop unceremoniously atop a dumpster, he uses where his hand is still wrapped around Felicity’s elbow to drag her behind him and crowd her into an alcove, hiding them from prying eyes. Using his body to hide her from view and his hand over her mouth to keep her silent, he listens as the door that they just exited opens and a young man who works at the coffee place walks out with a rubbish bag, dumping it in the alley without bothering to open a bin to put it in.

Once he hears the boy retreat back into the shop, he gives her his attention again, finding her glaring furiously up at him until he removes his hand from her mouth.

“Yes.” He admits again, voice low and beseeching her to understand, “Yes, I am Oliver Queen. Yes I was shipwrecked three years ago, yes I am alive and yes I am back in Starling.” She opens her mouth to say something but he stops her, “I was trapped on an island for a while but then some people came and freed me. They took me to Hong Kong and after that, I made my way back here and only recently arrived.” It is the truth from a certain perspective, Oliver has the flight log that puts his arrival in Starling only a few hours before. He did technically only just arrive back in the city

“What about your-”

“You cannot tell _anybody_ that I’m here.” He says strongly, impressing on her how important that fact is, “ _Nobody_ can know, not even my family.”

“But… why?” her voice is small, her brow furrowed as she attempts to work out why he is not letting his family know that he is alive after they have spent years looking for him, mourning him.

Something funny happens inside him when he realises that she is not refusing his request, nor is she trying to convince him to tell his family that he is alive. There is something in her tone that tells him she has no intentions to tell anybody about him without his permission. No, she is simply asking why. She just wants to understand, to have a reason to keep such a momentous secret from the people she is working for.

Once again, he finds himself unable to lie to her. But he also does not want her to know the truth. He is not ready to see the disgust in her eyes when she knows that his job is to be Waller’s hitman. He gets paid kill whomever he is told to kill and to take people in to face their fates at the hands of Waller. And he does not even know what she does to those people. He assumes that she employs some, imprisons others. He does not like to think about the fact that some of them are likely tortured for information, that the only reason that some of his jobs instruct him not to kill is so that Waller can extract information from them before ending them.

Felicity cannot know that. The way she looks at him… it is like nothing he has ever experienced before. There is no expectation in her eyes, no judgement or preconceptions or assumptions or anything. Just interest, curiosity, attraction. She is intrigued by him, but she is waiting for him to give her a reason for her intrigue. He cannot mar that with disgust or hatred, he cannot lose it. In less than an hour, having her look at him like that has become something that he can no longer imagine life without. He wants it, he needs it and he knows that he cannot let it go. No matter what he has to do, he wants to keep that in his life, wants to keep her in his life.

Oliver makes a decision, “I’m not ready.” He admits, truthfully, “The last three years…” he breathes deeply, “Over the last few years a lot has changed, _I’ve_ changed. I’m not the boy they lost and they’re not the people I was kept from. I’ve been through a lot and I’m not ready to talk about it yet, I’m not ready to go back and have all of those expectations and judgements and questions thrust upon me.” He is not looking at her, unable to face her as he tells her something that he has never told anybody else before but that he knows is the truth in is heart, even if it is a sanitised version of the truth, “If I went back now… I’m afraid it would only hurt my family more, having me back. It would only make things worse. I can’t do that to them and I can’t do it to myself either. It’ll be much better for everyone if I take my time and get my head together so that I can protect them from the darkness I have experienced when I go home to them.”

Gulping, he slowly moves his eyes down from the brick behind her head so that he can meet her eyes, “Felicity, I only just got my freedom a few months ago. I need this time to keep it, to find out who I’ve become in my years trapped so that I don’t bring all of my issues back to my family. And if that means letting them live with the grief of my loss for a little longer, then that’s what’s going to be better for everyone.”

Her expression is warm as she looks up at him, heart shining through her eyes. He can see sorrow in them, not pity but pain. Empathy for him and his ordeal. He can see that she believes him and that, even if she does not know the full extent of his suffering, she understands what he is saying. She may not understand his decision, but she understands why he has made it and she respects it. Oliver cannot remember the last time anybody respected anything that he did.

  
“Okay,” her neck is tilted so far so that she can look up at him and it makes Oliver hyperaware of just how much smaller than him she is. She is _tiny_ , “Okay, I won’t tell anybody. But, Oliver, you shouldn’t be alone. You should find somebody you can talk to, even if it’s just for some company now and again.” her teeth worry at her lip, conflict flashing over her, “Look, I know you don’t know me and I know there are probably dozens of people who would be better for you to talk to but just in case you’re not ready to tell anybody you’re alive yet, just in case I’m the only one who knows, here.” She pulls a notepad and pen from her bag and scribbles something on it, “This is my number. Feel free to call or text if you need anything, if you want somebody to talk to. I’ll be around.” She smiles at him nervously.

As if in a trance, Oliver reaches out and plucks the scrap of paper from her hands, looking over the digits scrawled on it in slightly messy but still somehow elegant handwriting like it is a priceless treasure. And to him it is. It is a way for him to hold on to this, the foreign feeling she is giving him, something that only she has made him feel in three years. He knows that he should let her go. He should step back, walk her to her car or a taxi to ensure she can get home safely without following her because if he follows her and finds out where she lives he knows that there will be no stopping him from visiting her and he should throw that number away before he can memorise it.

But he also knows that he will do none of that. He is already drinking in those numbers, committing them to memory. He is already too far in, too attached to her and her brightness and the way that she makes him feel. His face muscles are straining as they pull up his lips in a smile. It aches, those muscles gave gone unused for a long time, but it feels good.

Hopeless but to do anything else, he pockets the paper, knowing that he will not even need to take it out later when he adds her number to his contacts and inevitably messages her because it is already branded in his mind. He just wants to keep it, evidence of her kindness, of her wanting to know him not for his money or social status or anything else, just because she wants to help him, just because she wants to be there for him.

The trance does not break as he re-enters the café with her and buys both of them a latte, as he follows her home to make sure she is safe, as he takes out his phone and types in those numbers and the words, _Hi, it’s Oliver._ His mind stays hazy even as he tucks the sheet into a book in his sparse apartment, and thinks of the feeling of her small body hidden behind his in that alcove.

His phone dings and he looks down to see _Hi, Oliver! It’s good to hear from you, do you want to get coffee sometime this weekend?_ Written across the screen. She wants to see him again.

Inside, his body feels light and floaty, something bubbling up in him. It is something that he has long since grown unfamiliar with, even in the time before the island, but he has faint memories of it from time spent with Thea. Nights where he and Tommy would just hang out quietly at the mansion. Afternoons when his father would come home from work early and spend time with him.

He thinks that it might be happiness.

Felicity.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! I hope you're staying safe wherever you are. Remember to social distance and wear a mask.
> 
> I'll be back soon with something else :D I'm on twitter [@MagusLibera](https://twitter.com/MagusLibera) and I'll probably run a poll to see what fic people want me to finish next the most soon.


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